The invention relates to electronic musical instruments, where the various sounds or noises are produced by electronic means.
It should be emphasized at the outset that the present invention relates to the means for playing the electronic instrument, that is, to the various keys and movable control units or elements operated by the right and left arm-hand-finger parts of a human person, rather than to the mechanical or electronic means for producing noise or sound or determining the nature and quality thereof. The mechanical and electrical construction of the sound or noise producing parts, including the manner in which different kinds of sound are to be produced, is either well known in the art, or within the competence of skilled workers in the field, after they have read the present disclosure and learned from this disclosure what effects the various keys and movable control elements are intended to produce. Therefore, no attempt is made here to disclose details of wiring or circuitry, or of various electrical or electronic vibrators or noise producers, it being sufficient for present purposes to indicate merely the effect which is to be produced by operation or movement of a particular key or control element. It is believed that skilled workers in the electronic instrument field have the competence to provide means to produce the desired sound effect when they learn, from the present invention disclosure, what effect is desired to be produced upon movement of a particular key or control element herein disclosed.
Electronic musical instruments, in comparison to historical non-electronic musical instruments, have the advantage that their tone basis can be developed to an optimal technical functional manner in each case, so that at the present state of technology, almost all theoretically possible tone elements can be generated and represented. Whether such a largely unlimited working tone basis is to be provided in any particular case, is largely a question of the individually justifiable economic expense.
The well known electronic musical instruments adapted for direct control can be divided into two main groups or classes, depending on their playing basis. In this connection, the term direct control means that the instrument is played directly by movements of a part of the human body, such as the arm-hand-fingers member or the leg-foot member of the body, as distinguished from instruments played by indirect control, such as those controlled by a prearranged tape or other prearranged mechanism. Also, for present purposes the term playing basis means the parts of the instrument to which are touched or moved by the human body, while playing the instrument. In these two main groups or classes of directly controlled electronic musical instruments, the first group is those whose playing bases are completely different from the keyboard of the historical stringed piano. This applies, for example, to the Trautonium, which has one or more ribbon manuals as an essential part of its playing basis. Directly controllable synthesizers may also have ribbon manuals.
The second group or class of directly controlled electronics musical instruments are those which have a keyboard similar to that of the historical stringed piano as the essential part of their playing basis. Nearly all electronic musical instruments belong to this second group. These include what are called electronic organs, as well as directly controlled synthesizers. The reason why such keyboards are so commonly provided as the playing basis for electronic musical instruments, is probably that the playing technique is simple and easy to learn, and the playing technique is in the complete command of the majority of players. In addition to the keyboard of the historic piano, the manual playing devices of electronic instruments of this class often have special keys as playing helps, with which complex tone elements, such as chords, can be produced.
Both of these main groups or classes of electronic musical instruments have so-called registries. These are groups of action converters with which specific tone elements or different modes of operation of the other action converters, continuously used when playing, can be preselected. These action converters normally have the shape of electrical switch keys or controllers.
As the keyboard of the historical piano type is meant to be the essential part of a playing basis for electronic musical instruments, this leads to the fact that only a few tone elements can be controlled at the same time, and that the infinitely variable control of tone elements is very limited. This results from the fact that normally only three or four control items are available, with such a keyboard. These control items are the place or position of the key, the duration of pressing the key down, the acceleration of the pressed key, and the key pressure against the lower limit of depression of the key. Usually the place or location of the key determines the pitch of the sound which is produced. The start or commencement, the duration, and the muting of the tone are controlled by the duration of the pressure on the key. The sound intensity can be controlled by varying the degree of acceleration of the key which is pressed. The sound intensity, the timbre, or the pitch of the tone can be influenced by the amount of key pressure, that is, the amount of force used in pressing the key at the bottom or lower limit of its downward motion. For the control of additional tone elements, it is necessary to add further action converters. These additional action converters are controlled by extra or additional effectors. Thus, for example, the infinitely variable control of the total volume or the pitch are often rendered by the leg-foot effector group, through so-called foot or knee pedals. This is a kind of control with which a subtle control is extremely difficult.
Consequently, one can state with assurance that the use of keyboards of the historic piano type leads to a considerable limitation of the controllability of electronic musical instruments in their sound effects. That is why the technical advantages of electronic sound generation have not been able to be used for the presentation of music in a sufficient degree. Because of the limited output of such keyboards, the well known and conventional electronic musical instruments, like the historic musical instruments with mechanical sound generating parts, have a particular sound pattern. They do not reach the degree of a universal musical instrument, however. That is, because of the limitations inherent in the conventional piano type of keyboard used on an electronic musical instrument, even with addition of a few extra keys or control elements of the kind heretofore used, the scope of possible sound effects is still quite limited. What may be called the sound world or sound ensemble of the European music culture can not be decisively extended in new directions and new types of effects, using these known types of electronic musical instruments controlled by keyboards of the piano type.
The playing bases of the first main group or class of electronic musical instruments show even more serious disadvantages in comparison to the playing bases of the second group, that is, the group having a keyboard somewhat similar to that of a piano. The total output of the playing bases of instruments of the first group causes an even worse controllability of the sound. The most serious shortcoming arises from the extreme difficulty of playing quick single tone scales and chords.
The present invention deals with the matter of creating a manual playing device for electronic musical instruments of the direct control type, that is, where the playing is performed by movements of parts of the human body such as the arm, the hand, or the fingers. According to the present invention, a special console is provided, differing in many ways from the conventional piano type of keyboard. With this specific manual playing device of the present invention, a maximum number of different tone elements can be controlled, using the easiest possible playing technique. Thus the capacity performance of a largely unlimited working electronic sound bases can be used for the presentation of music at a maximum degree.
Through a great utilization of the capacitive performance of the effectors, as many different sound elements as possible are controlled synchronously. With just one person playing, there can be a great number of autonomous channels.
This is accomplished, according to one aspect of the present invention, by the use of a small and light weight basic unit or manual, placed movably on a playing board, this manual carrying action converters which are located in convenient positions for playing and controlling actions of one arm-hand-finger group of effectors only. The main keys for controlling action are located in the action range of the forefinger, middle finger, and ring finger. A small console with a group of special keys is simultaneously in the action range of the small finger, while other special keys are simultaneously in the control range of the person's thumb. In addition to the main keys, there are also special keys which are within the action range of the forefinger, middle finger, and the thumb. Also, in the resting range of the hand there is what may be called a trestle unit or support on which the hand may rest, the trestle being movable upwardly and downwardly as the hand and the arm of the player move upwardly and downwardly, this upward and downward movement of the trestle unit serving to control still other characteristics of the sound produced by the electronic instrument. In addition, when the hand is on this trestle unit, special keys for further control of the sound output are within the control action range of the forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger.
The various keys and other movable parts which are moved by the fingers, hand, or other parts of the body of the person playing the instrument, may be referred to broadly as action converters. The basic unit and the action converters carried thereby are electrically connected with the electronic sound producing and sound modifying elements of the musical instrument, in such a way that manual actuation of the action converters will produce the desired sound producing or sound modifying effect. As already explained at the outset, the present invention deals with the physical arrangement of the action converters (keys or other manually movable elements) rather than with the electronic mechanism, and it is within the skill of workers in the electronic musical instrument field to provide the electronic equipment and circuitry necessary to produce the described sound effects and modifications.
For purposes of describing the layout and the movements of the different parts thereof, it will be convenient to refer to the conventional three rectangular coordinates. For purposes of this invention, the x-axis is regarded as the horizontal axis passing from side to side, that is, in the direction of the length of a keyboard in a conventional piano. The y-axis is the horizontal axis perpendicular to the x-axis, that is, passing from front to back or vice versa. The z-axis is the vertical or up and down axis.
The basic unit comprises a casing or housing which is movably combined by a sliding device with the sliding devices of the playing board. The latter are arranged in the x direction, that is, in the direction of the above mentioned x-axis. The person playing the instrument, by moving his arm suitably, causes the basic unit (which may also be called a manual) to change its position along the x-axis and this causes a variable control of sound elements either in a continuous manner or stepwise by degrees or steps, as may be preferred. This travel of the manual along the x-axis is supplemented by a supplementary traveling device whereby the trestle unit is movable in the direction of the y-axis, and this brings about a further variation of the sound elements either as a continuous variation or as a stepwise variation.
The main keys, the main purpose of which is to make possible the control of the pitch of single notes, are combined in a keyboard in which the pitches of a tone system are graded in the y direction as their main direction, as distinguished from the conventional piano keyboard in which the notes are graded in the x direction. Furthermore, the number of these main keys is limited in such a way that only a part of the total tone range of the sound bases is represented by these main keys which, however, cover the tone range of one complete octave.
The special keys on the console in the action range of the little finger work mainly in the manner of controllers. Thus when touching them with the little finger, the stage values of sound elements or playing helps can be controlled.
The special keys or similar means on the console in the action range of the thumb normally controls sound elements in an infinitely variable manner, that is, through a continuous range rather than stepwise.
Additional special keys on the console are in the action range of the thumb. They work like switches, and serve the purpose of a registry. This purpose can be fulfilled quickly when playing by using the player's forefinger, middle finger, and thumb.
The resting and holding devices of the trestle unit or support unit are arranged at such a height above the main keys that easy actions of motion can be achieved with those fingers that play the main keys. Moreover, they are movably fixed on the trestle unit for movement in the z direction or vertical direction. Thus by resting or putting down ones hand to cause downward movement of the trestle unit, or raising the hand to allow upward movement of the trestle unit under its own spring power, control of sound elements can be achieved either in a continuous (infinitely variable) manner or in a stepwise manner, as may be preferred.
Special keys on the trestle unit act as controllers and serve chiefly as registries. When playing, this can be achieved by the fingers, or by those parts of the hand that rest upon the registry.
The playing board is of such a size that it accommodates two manuals, one for each hand of the player. The manuals are reversed duplicates of each other, that is, reversed from side to side, left to right, except that some of the special keys may be omitted from the left hand manual if the player is right handed, or may be omitted from the right hand manual if the player is left handed and wishes to use his left hand for the major control functions.